


they used to dance in the garden in the middle of the night

by ihaveacleverfandomurl



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - No Exy (All For The Game), Alternate Universe - Vampire, Angst, Blood and Gore, Costume Parties & Masquerades, Graphic blood descriptions, M/M, Minor Character Death, Vampire Neil
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-10
Updated: 2020-10-10
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:06:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26922589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ihaveacleverfandomurl/pseuds/ihaveacleverfandomurl
Summary: The orange mask has tumbled to the ground in the short tussle, and Andrew tears his gaze from the fanged fox lying on the ground at his feet to land upon the nightmarish scene.The fox man’s rich orange brocade waistcoat no longer shines with gold, rather, the moonlight catches the gleam of drops of fresh blood. Spattered across the fabric. Welling from skin. Dripping from the man’s mouth. The gorilla of a man is slumped pitifully across the pathway, neck exposed, entirely limp — perhaps dead — and the fox is drinking his blood.
Relationships: Allison Reynolds/Renee Walker (All For The Game), Minor or Background Relationship(s), Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Comments: 5
Kudos: 44





	they used to dance in the garden in the middle of the night

**Author's Note:**

> CW: murder, mention of suicidal thoughts, LOTS of blood & gore, violence, sexual harassment  
> i’ve had pieces of this sitting around as a draft for so so long but it’s Halloween so it’s vamp time  
> does this have an actual time period it’s taking place in?? no i’m just a whore for rococo fashion so picture that but i did no research on the actual lifestyle other than looking at clothes (also bitch i wanna cosplay my own fic i wish i had any kind of motivation rip)  
> title from bloodletting by concrete blonde

Andrew does not attend fancy parties. In fact, he avoids them, as a principle. He does not belong amongst the glittering finery and rich glamour of ballrooms and masquerades — he was not born into it, and he has certainly not grown into this new place in society.

His newly acquired Minyard name has brought with it money and status, however. And his newly acquired cousin has fetched endless needling, coaxing, and begging for Andrew to accompany him to these parties.

So here Andrew stands, at the edge of a luxuriously marbled dance floor whirling with guests adorned in gaudy extravagance. This masquerade is much like any other that Nicky has dragged him to. While it has long since lost any hint of enchantment it might once have carried for a young and penniless Andrew — who would have been speechless for the unabashed expense of it all — he is still new enough to the scene to be on edge. Thankfully most guests seem to skirt him with a wide berth, only tossing a curious glance or two towards the pillar he leans against. But he feels stranger than normal. Something is not right.

Renee Walker is one of the few he allows to approach without a qualm, answering her smile with a nod. She is like him — a street urchin brought above their station, uncomfortable and unused to this world. She tucks her hands in front of her and tilts her head as she comes to stand beside him, looking out over the dance floor.

An ever-present cross glitters atop the satin at her breast, but one of the knives up Andrew’s sleeve spent most of its life in her hands. They share a past and an understanding, and it is why he indulges her when she looks at him and smiles once more.

“I like your mask, Andrew.”

He reaches to finger the dark silver gilt fur of the wolf mask that matches his ridiculous silver-trimmed coat and trousers. It could not be more different from her delicate, butterfly-like mask in muted rainbow and soft white.

“You look fine.”

She bites back a laugh and inclines her head to accept the compliment. “You’ve found no dance partner tonight, Mr. Wolf?”

“Nor have you.”

“Then shall we dance?”

His neck is crawling with the pressure of eyes upon him, fingers itching to draw one of the many weapons he still hides upon his person. It is not the first time he has felt this in his time here, and he wagers it won’t be the last. “Not tonight. Find Reynolds if you wish for a gavotte.”

“So you aim for a scandal,” Renee titters, but the light in her eyes dims. Part of their understanding includes the well-kept knowledge that Andrew prefers the company of men, and she, women. Allison Reynolds’s dance card should be filled with male suitors, regardless of how both Reynolds and Renee may wish otherwise.

“I’ll leave you to your skulking, then,” Renee says, the clasping of his shoulder a barely-there touch. He watches her weave her way through the crowd towards Reynolds and cannot stop his twitch toward a knife when she is intercepted by a leering stranger easily twice her size. Andrew’s instincts are unnecessary, however — the cold smile she turns on the man is accompanied with a well-placed strike of her hand, and the man staggers back as she continues on her way.

Andrew still considers murder as he flicks a knife between his fingers under the folds of his coat, and feels once more the prickle of a gaze, though it is not Renee’s still-bent-over-and-gasping harasser.

He finds his watcher, this time, a figure across the room leaning against his own white marble pillar, tucked into a shadowy corner. The man is almost as short as Andrew, his dark orange coat, waistcoat, and breeches spilling intricate gold embroidery and white lace. Though his mask is much obscured by the shadows, Andrew thinks it appears canine-like — or perhaps feline, with a glimpse of fang framing its orange snout.

No matter what creature this man has aimed for in costuming. Andrew does not take stalking lightly. He pulls the blade from its hiding place within his coat, and though he cannot see the man’s eyes, he feels them immediately fall to the flash of silver, then raise back up to Andrew’ masked face.

Infuriatingly, the man merely nods at this show of force, and turns away. Andrew watches as, inexplicably, the stranger winds his way through the crowds to Renee’s fuming gorilla of an assailant, says a few words to him, and leads him towards the doors out into the gardens.

It could be a trap. Andrew has not lived through hell and back to ignore his gut now, but his senses don’t scream trickery. Rather, a quiet tug of curiosity pulls him quite insistently from his post instead.

He steals after the strange pair, following through embellished garden doors onto a moonlit balcony. It is less peopled out here, in the cool night air, quieter and emptier. The smaller man leads the much larger down a landscaped path, around corner after corner. As Andrew reluctantly trails with his sharpest blades clutched in either hand, the garden paths grow completely abandoned, with only the eerie calls of night creatures and the whisper of the wind playing with branches to join Andrew’s carefully muted footsteps.

It is the large man who finally breaks the silence as the two in front slow, his growl irritated. “Where on earth is —”

He does not finish, cut off by his own cry instead, a thud, and a horrible snarl.

Andrew flattens himself against the hedge at his back and wills his breaths to be silent even as his heart pounds, as he inches forward to peer around the corner and see —

The orange mask has tumbled to the ground in the short tussle, and Andrew tears his gaze from the fanged fox lying on the ground at his feet to land upon the nightmarish scene.

The fox man’s rich orange brocade waistcoat no longer shines with gold, rather, the moonlight catches the gleam of drops of fresh blood. Spattered across the fabric. Welling from skin. Dripping from the man’s mouth. The gorilla of a man is slumped pitifully across the pathway, neck exposed, entirely limp — perhaps dead — and the fox is drinking his blood.

For the first time in a long time, as the inhuman creature raises his face from the body to look Andrew dead in the eye, Andrew feels a shudder of something like fear almost pull him back a step.

The strange man licks at the flecks of ruby red staining his lips — then those lips part to reveal fangs as impressive as his mask. “Shall you run to warn the party of the ghastly demon in the gardens? A murderer, a cannibal?”

Andrew’s moment of weakness has long since passed. He knows what he is capable of, no matter any supernatural element of this man. “You underestimate me if you believe I will run.”

“No flight? A fighter?” The man stands, straightens his waistcoat, and daubs at the red flecks left from his victim, rubbing them between his fingers. Finally, he looks at Andrew once more, and his eyes are glowing, an unsettling shade of scarlet that glimmers in the near-dark. He kicks at the body at his feet with a toe. “Are you really so much of a threat in comparison to this one, here? I could simply snap your neck and drain you dry as I did him.”

“Try me and you shall find your own neck slit.”

“Well. I do not wish that upon myself.” The man’s smile is irritatingly sardonic. “Had you approached me several years ago, I would have perhaps taken you up on the offer.”

Andrew eyes the corpse and decides that perhaps living and letting live — or perhaps not _living_ , in this fox man’s case — would lead to a mutually beneficial arrangement tonight. He has no love lost for this type of man that is lying upon the path.

“I suppose you saved me the trouble,” he says. “He is better dead.”

“Precisely the reason for my selection.” The grin is blood-smeared. “Will you allow me to finish my meal? I promise that I will not remove any guests that would be missed.”

Andrew runs a thumb over one of his blades and considers the offer, watching the fox man watching him.

After a pause, “I will leave, if you wish, once I am done with him.”

“Keep your promise and I will keep your secret,” Andrew finds himself pronouncing, senselessly, and that is the beginning of his acquaintance with a vampire.

**Author's Note:**

> oop [i made another moodboard for this fic](https://foxy-exy.tumblr.com/post/631556701696442368/cw-murder-blood-gore-it-is-the-large-man-who) please consider reblogging bc i'll lov u  
> chat to me abt aftg on tumblr @ [foxy-exy](https://foxy-exy.tumblr.com/) or check out links to my other socials with cosplay & other content in [my carrd here](https://kayizcray.carrd.co/)!  
> -  
> comments keep me goin, please please do leave em n i'll adore you  
> 


End file.
